On Natalie Goldberg, Frank O'Hara, Anthony Bourdain, Religeous Writing and Authenticity

Watching an episode or two of Anthony Bourdain on Netflix has become part of my nightly ritual.  Currently, I'm watching episodes of The Layover.   With all the drinking he does, and all his bleeped out language, it may seem incompatible with my religion.

However, my uncle, who was always active in the church, was a big fan of Ernest Hemingway.  When I was younger that seemed like a contradiction, and I assumed because Hemingway's fiction is clearly from an atheistic perspective that my uncle probably had a lot of secret religious doubts.

I no longer think that is necessarily true.  I don't admire writers for shared beliefs; I admire them for artistic integrity, or for having the guts to "go for the jugular," as Natalie Goldberg would put it.

I don't think she necessarily means the big thing, but she does mean the elephant in the room.  It's just that not all elephants are large.  Some sit tiny by a dust ball next to the wireless modem on the antique drop leaf table, and still they suck up all the air.  One doesn't have to confess all to write well.  Sometimes that actually becomes a form of dishonesty--rewriting ones own life to give it drama it doesn't have, not by lying, but by presenting an unbalanced focus on tragedy.

I think Frank O'Hara went for the jugular, which for him was an honest take on day to day living:

an invitation to lunch
HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?
when I only have 12 cents and 2
packages of yoghurt
there's a lesson in that, isn't there
like in Chinese poetry when a leaf falls?
hold off on the yoghurt till the very
last, when everything may improve

     (from "Five Poems,"  Lunch Poems)

So does Bourdain.  He has these great lines like "I don't think you should put ketchup on hot dogs; I'm pretty sure God would not like that."  What could be more authentic for a chef to say, even an atheist chef?  Bourdain is real in a world of pretense and that is enough for me.

That's one thing I dislike about Mormon culture.  Duty to uphold the image sometimes makes authenticity difficult.  Before coming back to the church, I wrote whatever I wanted to; now I choose my words very carefully.    Yet, it is only through the authentic voice that the spirit is felt.

I'm in the middle of reading an amazing story by James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues."  It's got that solid reality to it that Natalie Goldberg talks about when she urges writers to "go for the jugular":

I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work.  I read it, and I couldn't believe it, and I read it again.  Then perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name, spelling out the story.  I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside.

Steadily unfolds a story of being black in America unflinching and unexaggerated.

I'm old; I'm unknown; I live uncomfortably between two worlds--that of a devout Mormon and that of a devout liberal artist--and so there is probably no way I'll ever have any impact on either my religion or my art (the chasm between the two worlds is just too wide), but if by some freakish chance my voice is heard beyond the echoing chambers of my own mind, it will be because I was brave enough to live in that uncomfortable space and not do the easy thing by choosing one audience over the other.  For to do so would be a lie, and only the authentic has a lasting shelf life.

Being authentic doesn't guarantee that a writer will make it, but not being authentic does guarantee a writer will eventually be forgotten.

Dry Creek and a Sunday Song: “If You Could Hie to Kolob”

I recently watched an interview where film-maker, M. Night Shyamalan, explained his success this way:  “I’m more me than they are them”--or something real close to that.

Perhaps that is a little over-simplified.  There is scientific research that suggests that greatness, as determined by the world, though tied to talent, is as much a matter of chance as it is a matter of quality.  Still, it rings true: in a world of fronting, we crave authenticity.  That has always been my attraction to the music John Lennon.  As a song writer, no matter what stage of his life, John was thoroughly John.  The same is true of Bob Marley or William Carlos Williams.  As artists, there is something lasting about being you.

Sometimes that is a struggle.  We are complex.  Who am I?

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve wanted to post another “Dry Creek and a Sunday Song” entry for a particular Mormon hymn, but I’ve resisted.  I can’t find a video I like.  All of them are too “Mormony” for me.  They reek of Mormonism.  I guess I’m trying to serve two masters, God and Mammon.

There’s much in Mormon culture that I’m proud of: the Salt Lake Temple, the Manti Temple, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and many of the hymns.  For instance, there is no doubt that “Come, Come Ye Saints” is a great work of art.  But then there is a whole array of art that in my mind could grace the cover of a Jehovah Witness pamphlet.  I’m not demeaning the Jehovah Witnesses.  I don’t know enough about their doctrine to judge, but artistically speaking, they seem to be the backwaters of Christian culture.  Mormonism, I have to admit, sometimes feels the same.

There is no reason for me to be Mormon other the fact that I believe Joseph Smith did exactly what he claimed: he restored the power of Christ's church to the earth.  In the past, I always had to fight to be me within Mormon culture.  As a youth, it seemed youth activities were always centered around basketball and scouts, athleticism and conformity—two qualities that just do not fit my individual, renegade soul well.  I could never shine in that environment.  I have zero kinesthetic drive or ability, and my mind has never worked remotely like anyone else’s.  Mormon culture, in short, hid my talent under a bushel.

And yet I was very unhappy when I walked away from the church precisely because I do believe.  I worked hard to not believe, but there was a part of me that always remembered the spiritual confirmation—the warm, peaceful affirmation—this is good, this is light that I received when reading the Joseph Smith account when I was twelve years old.

However, now that I’ve come back to the church, I no longer feel the isolation I felt as a child because like M. Night Shyamalan, I’ m learning to be thoroughly me.  And once you’re comfortable in your own skin, others are at ease around you too, even if you’re not like them.

I’m still quiet.  I still usually don’t have much to say, but when I do, it’s worthwhile and people value it.  And whether they do or not doesn't really matter—if I have anything of value to offer the world, it can only be my authenticity.  Sometime around the time that I read the first vision account—I don’t remember if it was before or after— I made a pact with myself that for the rest of my life I would be honest.  I failed at so many things after that, but that is one thing I've been able to do consistently.  I don’t always live up to my word.  I make promises that I don’t keep, but when it comes to telling the truth as I see it, even in times when it is counterproductive to what I want, I have kept the oath I made as a child.  As a result, the one thing I’m good at is authenticity.  It is my one and only gift that I have to offer the world.  It is why I write well and why I teach well.  I am able to fully enter a moment and bare witness what that moment feels like.

So, now I would now like to offer the world the Mormon hymn, “If You Could Hie to Kolob” which I find absolutely brilliant, even when wrapped in a culture that quite frankly sometimes gives me the willies.  I’m just not the type of guy to hang a picture of Jesus in my living room or post pre-made spiritual messages on facebook.   It’s not that I don’t believe—I do, fervently—but I want my message to be authentically me.  So, I wish the New York Dolls covered this hymn, because they’d do it like I would if I could, but they don’t, so here it is, wrapped up all Mormony, and  followed by the lyrics and thoughts:

If you could hie to Kolob

In the twinkling of an eye,

And then continue onward

With that same speed to fly,

Do you think that you could ever,

Through all eternity,

Find out the generation

Where Gods began to be?

Mormon doctrine allows for a grand view of the universe.  In A Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan asks the following:

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.” 

Mormonism, from its inception, has stressed such a universe.  Long before any planets were identified outside our solar system, Joseph Smith knew worlds without end like our own existed.  Kolob refers to a planet described in the Book of Abraham, first published in the Times and Seasons in 1842 and now included in the Pearl of Great Price, part of the cannon of Mormonism.  Kolob is referred to as a star, but is more likely a planet.  In Abraham it says:

And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it; 

And the Lord said unto me:  These are the governing ones: and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God:  I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.  [Abraham 3: 2-3, Pearl of Great Price]

That science would find planets outside our solar systems is totally expected in Mormonism.  Magnificence beyond our comprehension is our world view.  Eternity from our perspective is eternal.  7,000 years is not grand enough to contain our creation:

Or see the grand beginning,

Where space did not extend?

Or view the last creation,

Where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers,

“No man has found ‘pure space,’

Nor seen outside curtains,

Where nothing has a place.”

The big bang—where space did not extend—sure.   But, probably not just one.  Rather, universe after universe, creation everlasting.  Again, this aligns well with the ideas of modern astronomy.

The works of God continue,

And worlds and lives abound;

Improvement and progression

Have one eternal round.

There is no end to matter;

There is no end to space;

There is no end to spirit;

There is no end to race.

There is no end to virtue;

There is no end to might;

There is no end to wisdom;

There is no end to light.

There is no end to union;

There is no end to youth;

There is no end to priesthood;

There is no end to truth.

There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;

There is no death above.

There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;

There is no death above.

Text: William W. Phelps, 1792-1872

I testify that that although the universe is grand beyond all comprehension by man, through the spirit, we each can know our particular role in it through direct revelation received as an answer to personal prayers.  For the ultimate glory of God is that he is both grand enough to command creation (through whatever natural laws) and intimate enough to know each of us personally.

May this Sunday morning in our niches of creation be dazzling dappled and grander, more subtle, more elegant than it was yesterday.  May our eyes, minds, hearts and books be open.  May we kneel before the alter, sit zazen, run toward the sunrise, prostrate ourselves towards  Mecca, look through our microscopes, our telescopes, into the eyes of our loved ones, into the eyes of our enemies, into each other’s hearts, into each other’s souls.

May we think big and precise.

May we be grand, not petty.

Have a great Sunday.